in·her·it·ed

But I have infinite tenderness for you. I always will. All my life long.

losing you pt. 3

Night Vale: Aliens are real and you’ve probably laid next to one for a night

But then again I wonder if what we feel in our hearts today isn’t like these raindrops still falling on us from the soaked leaves above, even though the sky itself long stopped raining. I’m wondering if without our memories, there’s nothing for it but for our love to fade and die.

Leaving is not enough. You must stay gone. Train your heart like a dog. Change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. You lucky, lucky girl. You have an apartment just your size. A bathtub full of tea. A heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. Don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. You had to have him. And you did. And now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. Make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. Place it on whatever altar you fashion… Don’t lose too much weight. Stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.

1. “…and your mother said ‘Happy birthday. I am sorry to inform you that everyone you love is dead’” Explain, with reference to Sylvia Plath’s first suicide attempt and subsequent admittance to hospital, the relevance of the quote above to your childhood, when, upon seeing the brilliant blue of a butterfly’s wings—(10 marks) 2. Should a poet’s work be enjambed or read in sequence? Examinees are encouraged to utilise essay structure and one reference to Walt Whitman in their answer.(5 marks) 3.  There’s stardust in our eyes and laughter on our lips, Over and over again the orchestra plays our last dance: Amor, amor, amor—(10 marks) 4.  They saw that post you made last night, when you thought they had gone to sleep and you could let the hurt bleed. Give up. It’s over. You’re over. A person who has feelings is a ruined person unless they keep their mouth shut - which is exactly what you didn’t do. (5 marks) 5. I hold stars for the gods, their flashing eyes are nebulae, colours blooming against the universe; their council is the companion of beauty and destruction.  The moirai, with their pale fingers, trace my body, as cold and unfeeling as porcelain, each brush a calculation and every new line a fate thrown into existence. They cut my golden hairs one by one; there is no string of fate, destinies are written in my stars— (10 marks) 6.  “You trace my scars like you could brush them away and wipe the blood from my mouth as if it would remove the wounds on my lips.” Discuss this statement, with evidence cited from the decline of the relationship between Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to support your conclusion. (5 marks) 7.  “Now the sky is still heartbreakingly blue. It’s a blue that lovers kiss under, in the cooling summer air, the kind that drags itself across the skin of my body and leaves a trail of goose bumps to hint at its existence. It’s so quiet I can hear the radio playing somewhere. It’s singing about people, and about feelings… feelings about people. It’s warbling words of love and murdering us with words edged like an axe. It’s crooning the song of death.” Do you agree? (20 marks) 8.Cassandra was gone long before her death, murmuring words, and words, and words; and her mind falling as Apollo watched her beauty heighten in her madness, and the truth will always be madness, but when she died with screams on her lips, she could not help but be satisfied with her choice, though it may never have been hers, because she cannot be her own person any more than you can stand to keep away from blades, do you understand please do you understand—(10 marks) 9. Is opinion a requirement for literature? Are you? (15 marks) 10.  If, at 5 A.M. on a Monday morning I still haven’t slept and countless cups of coffee have cooled in my hands, but I’m still reaching for your number in my phone even after you told me “never again”: (i)                 Explain why the French Revolution was an amalgamation of poor leadership, economic troubles and enlightened thinking, making sure to provide sufficient illustration of the dramatic irony and use of paradox used by the authors of the nightmare you had two hours ago every night but never wake from. (ii)               Draw the colour of your soul. (10 marks) — BONUS QUESTIONS: Shouldn’t you have learnt by now? (25 marks) Death won’t get an A on your exam. (25 marks) If I don’t exist, how do I know about me? (25 marks)Please? (25 marks) — All working must be demonstrated. All questions must be answered. Illegibility will be penalised.

This is how it’s going to go. You don’t know they exist. You are unaware that they are on this Earth. You wake up, you brush your teeth, you do whatever it takes to make it through the day, you lay in bed and play out fantasies of finally finding the right comeback when somebody is mean to you and the like, and then you sleep, and everything starts over again. Then you meet them. You might know it right then, or you might not, but God, you are in love with them. It’s the little things. You keep checking your phone to see if they have messaged you. You find yourself having to read the same sentence three times because you were too busy wondering if they were thinking about you too. And when you do talk to them, it’s better than it even is in your head and the way they smile sticks your tongue to the top of your mouth. Maybe you’re too scared to hold eye contact for too long because they might see how you’re feeling, but looking away makes you feel weak and when the blush creeps up your neck onto your cheeks, it’s too warm and uncomfortable and you wish you had just kept looking at them instead. You’re going to kiss them. The first kiss probably won’t be that good. You might both tilt your head to the right and then awkwardly both shift to the left to try to get the angle just perfect. There might be too much saliva involved and you quickly wipe your mouth against your sleeve the second they avert their eyes. Maybe your mouth will be too dry because you are nervous and all you can focus on is how quietly they kiss, like this moment between the two of you is a secret. Don’t worry. The first time will not be the best time, and even the best time will not be the best time, because each and every kiss will change as your feelings change. Love is a learning process, and you’re going to be fine. This is how they’re going to go. You’re going to open your eyes one day and your phone will have been silent since you plugged it in at night. You are going to roll over and realize that everywhere you are not laying feels like the cool side of the pillow. You’re going to shower alone for the first time in months. You forgot how much work it is to wash your hair. When you go on drives, you realize how bad you are at directions and finding where you are supposed to go. It’s the little things. Their laugh, that you thought was so funny and unique when you heard is, is suddenly the loudest noise at any crowded event you go to. It’s never going to be them, so stop straining your neck. You’re going to stop comparing their heart to the flowers you pass on your way to work in your head and you won’t even realize it. You are going stop waiting up until you are too tired to keep your eyes open. Love is a learning process. You’re going to be fine.

I feel unspeakably lonely. And I feel - drained. It is a blank state of mind and soul I cannot describe to you as I think it would not make any difference. Also it is a very private feeling I have - that of melting into a perpetual nervous breakdown. I am often questioning myself what I further want to do, who I further wish to be; which parts of me, exactly, are still functioning properly. No answers, darling. At all.

one time he and i were sitting in bed and i said “where do you feel stuff?” and he said “what do you mean” and i said, “here is anxiety” and pointed to my bottom left rib where the spiders start. he pointed to his throat. “it’s here for me.” 

i.  we found each other in some quiet place, where we could be alone with a thousand other people in the room. the first night, we didn’t even touch, just whispered until dawn broke and our eyelids grew heavy. we slept face to face. ii. we breathed in sync. i could feel your heartbeat thudding at the same tempo as mine with i pressed the heels of my hands into the soft skin on either side of your spine. it’s like our bodies were singing to each other, a sharp little rhythm reminding us that we were alive. iii.  i don’t even remember the first time i told you those three little words, but i know that every time i said it, my hands trembled until you wrapped them in your own. the fan whirred above us and outside the crickets chirped and i loved you so fiercely that it nearly killed me. iv. we told each other everything. saying some secrets made me feel weightless, others felt like pulling teeth. we’d smile. we’d cry. i can still feel your tears drying on the skin of my neck, still taste the salt of your shoulders. i never liked breaking down in front of you, but i’ve learned it’s harder to cry alone. v. these days, a stranger wears your skin. it’s lovely to know someone better than you know yourself, until you can’t recognize them anymore. i haven’t forgotten you. i know you’re in there somewhere. sometimes when she laughs i can see the ghost of you in her eyes.

Come back to me, God boy. You taste like leaving. And lightening. Come back to me, God boy. I knew you in another life and we had the same name. Come back to me, God boy. I’ll never love anyone like I loved you. I’m like a June bug. I’m always shifting towards the light of you.

I looked at the space you used to take up, and it was the darkest emptiness I’ve ever seen. You’re gone like last spring’s softness, like yesterday’s newspaper headline.                              *** Someone told me once that this island wouldn’t make it to meet my grandchildren, that it’s disappearing faster than us. I imagined the parts of ourselves we buried. How the corpses of our secrets wouldn’t even have the nerve to haunt us. How they’d just fall away from this earth, softly, as quiet as prayer.                              *** I miss your birthday laughter, you know the kind I mean. Void of all yesterdays. Your voice, like rain on the phone. Dream me as a bullet in the barrel of a gun if it makes this any easier. Dream me as the bullet you dodged or the one that left a hole in the wall of a house you were planning to leave anyway.